Urahara's Lawn Mowing Service
by MeteorLeopard
Summary: Incorrect phone numbers are a messy business. Even messier though is the business that happens after said incorrect phone call. "Fine, but I bet your girlfriend didn't call back because your lawn needs to be mowed."


**Warning: While this story is rated T, there are some references to mature scenes. It's all very mild though so there's no problem. Also, this is an AU setting, just to clear things up. **

**You might have noticed that most of our stories that are being posted are all being written by SugarFox. This is because HoneyBadger is working on some multi-chapter stories, of which she refuses to post even the first chapter until the whole story is completed. Do not fear; we're both still alive. **

**Now, enjoy! **

**Title: Urahara's Lawn Mowing Service**

**Author: MeteorLeopard (SugarFox)**

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><p>Karin had been sitting in his penthouse for the last half an hour, pondering why she had such terrible luck. What were the chances that her car would break down outside the supermarket minutes after she randomly met up with Toushirou for the first time in weeks? She didn't know what to say since she had been so sure that she would never see him again.<p>

He'd so kindly dropped her off at home since her own car hadn't been working, only to find that the block of flats in which she lived were closed without warning due to a gas leak. She also hadn't expected him to offer for her to stay with him until she could find a new place, but he had and here she was. Only she wished that she weren't here. Fate was cruel that way. After spending a single night of passion with a man she was sure she would never meet again, she wasn't sure how to feel about staying with him again.

Toushirou seemed to be very polite in his handling of her, and this only managed to aggravate her even more. He was so damn nonchalant and in the meantime she felt as though she might self-combust from desire every time she looked at him. Curse his perfectly calm control. He didn't seem to have any qualms about having her around, and to Karin it appeared as though his feelings didn't exactly reflect hers. She didn't know whether to be relived or disappointed that he didn't seem to want her the same way as he did that night of Ichi-nii's wedding.

Presently, Toushirou had gone out for a run and she estimated that he would be gone for another hour at least, so she made her way to the kitchen for a drink. She needed a nice big glass of icy water to cool down the completely indecent fantasies before Toushirou got back. She was just downing her drink when she heard the front door slam.

Karin turned her head and there he was, standing in a pair of running shorts and a light t-shirt. She quite suddenly forgot about the water in her hand. He was breathing deeply and sweating from his excursion. He began to stalk towards her, straight towards her and he didn't seem to be stopping. Karin's brain switched to panic-mode.

"Back already?" She blurted out, managing to take a couple of steps backwards.

"Yeah," he muttered, and then to her disappointment he veered off towards the fridge and yanked the door open. "It was short but intense." Karin held onto her glass as a form of protection between the two of them, and leaned back against the sink as she stared at him quizzically. "I ran up and down the stairs for twenty minutes." He filled her in, and she nodded as if she understood.

She quickly finished the last of her water and placed the glass on the countertop beside her, and then tried not to look at him. He stood facing her now, and his body was strong and fit. Karin found herself trying not to gasp for air and Toushirou, even after his workout, seemed to be able to breathe easier than she could right now. Unlike that night at Ichigo's wedding weeks ago, it was broad daylight and she was stone cold sober but somehow that only seemed to deep-root her want for him even more. Karin tried hard to redirect her thoughts into safer waters, finally settling on reciting every muscle and bone of the human body from her Physiology Textbook. It wasn't working so well.

Toushirou leaned back on the counter opposite from her and gave her a classic up and down look. "What are you thinking about with that expression?" He asked her and she nearly blanched. He surely couldn't read her thoughts, could he? What was she supposed to say, that she had actually been thinking about kissing him senseless and then making a trip to that huge double bed of his? No, definitely not. She tried to compose her face into a calmer mask and managed to wring an answer from her strangled throat. "Nothing." That had sounded reasonably collected.

There was silence between the two of them as his face twisted into a smirk of amused disbelief. Karin's nerves fluttered again and almost wanted to squirm under his gaze. This was not a good place to be and she wondered if perhaps she should make a dash for the door.

"Come here," he told her, and she hesitated, wondering if she should comply.

Of course she shouldn't. She had more pride than to be ordered around like a lapdog. So, resolutely ignoring the way his voice was making his skin crawl, she crossed her arms and put on her best scowl. "No."

Toushirou didn't seem very phased by her attitude. She'd given him plenty of that on the night of the wedding too. "Here," he repeated.

Karin only took one step forward. His commanding tone was grating on her nerves (well, whatever nerves she had left) and she was trying to be nonchalant and wishing desperately that she wasn't still in her tiny sleeping shorts and strappy shirt. She was feeling way too exposed. Where had all her confidence gone to?

"I meant right here," he told her in all seriousness and she only moved a fraction closer, her mind suddenly ticking with completely inappropriate thoughts. Right then she decided that she wasn't moving even an inch further in his direction. If he had something to say then he could damn well come to her.

"What?" she snapped at him. A mix of delicious anticipation and deep alarm rose as he straightened where he stood, his eyes growing darker.

"Why don't you do that 'nothing' you have been thinking about doing for the last five minutes?" He grinned devilishly at her and took a step closer to meet her where she had stopped short. "Or could it be that you have been thinking about 'nothing' for longer than that?"

Karin froze, and her mouth opened but no words came out. She wanted to snap back some snarky remark, but his close proximity was making her forget about everything except doing that 'nothing' he was teasing her about. She could feel his gaze roving her smooth lips and then they moved back to snare her eyes in his. He had the most beautiful eyes. Turquoise like she had only ever seen at the beach in the calm waters of the sea. There was warmth in them, the light that had seduced her so completely when she had first met him at the wedding and she knew she couldn't walk away from it.

Karin realised that he was waiting for her but she was stuck fast. Frozen in place. Though it seemed as though words might no longer be necessary as Toushirou's breath was beginning to catch in his throat. It was faster than when he had returned from his run and the glow in his gaze began to build to a full smoldering look of burning intensity. The world narrowed down to the two of them, neither of them making a move but tethering on the brink of doing so, like they were balanced on a knife's edge. Precarious.

A shrill, tuneless series of beeps broke tense moment.

Toushirou didn't step away from her. "Someone is trying to call you." He told her. His voice, for all its control, sounded hoarse.

She shook her head, unable to tear her gaze from his even now. "It's just my phone telling me it is almost out of battery."

"Recharge it" He told her simply.

"I can't." She confessed. "I lost my power cord."

A smile crept into his eyes as the phone trilled again. Such a normal conversation to be having right then while they were trapped in such an intense moment. Toushirou leaned forward and, reaching a hand into her shorts pocket, he pulled out her phone. Karin thought – hoped – that he was going to toss it onto the counter and forget about it. Instead though, he flipped it open and stared at it. He frowned. Then he pushed a couple of buttons.

"What is wrong? Isn't it working?" she asked him and he jerked when she spoke.

"I might have a power cord that could work for this." He muttered, but his mind had clearly switched to something else. The last vestiges of whatever intensity between them trickled down the drain. Quite suddenly Karin wanted her phone back and go hide in a corner somewhere and pretend that it had never happened. She reached for it but Toushirou held it high out of reach and continued pressing buttons. Curse his height! He'd told her that, when he was younger, he'd been made fun of because he was so short. Apparently his growth spurt had come late.

"What exactly are you looking for?" she asked him with a tone that was a tad sharper than she intended. "Give it back."

"Urahara's Lawn Moving Service," He told her shortly and Karin frowned, not quite following his train of thought.

"What?"

"That was the number you gave me." He gave her a hard look, like he was accusing her. "That was why I couldn't get through to you. The number you gave me was for Urahara's Lawn Mowing Service." His tone was less than impressed with her.

Oh hell. So he did try and call. She hadn't banked on that.

"Was it?" She asked him weakly, trying to sound innocent.

"Accidently on purpose?" He asked, and Karin tried not to flinch at his tone. He clearly hadn't found her lie amusing.

Her face fired up in a furious, angry blush. "Don't go blaming me! You were in such a hurry to leave and I decided it was better if I didn't hang around half hoping you would call. I thought it would be better to leave things as they were."

He moved, finally tossing the phone aside, taking the last step so that he was in front of her, blocking any form of escape. "Only _half_ hoping?" He asked her, his tone was teasing her, but his eyes were still laser sharp, demanding further explanation.

Karin tried not to blush and she wanted to beat her head against a wall. So he had tried to call her; she hadn't expected that. Now she only felt more defensive and reared up, trying to make her slim frame seem more intimidating, even though Toushirou was a good head taller than her. "Well you didn't give me you number," she snipped, letting sparks fly from her grey eyes and Toushirou didn't seem to like where the conversation was going.

"That was irrelevant. At the time I was trying to make sure I could contact you," he explained, irritation in his voice. "There was no point in giving you my number. I know you would never have called me. Would you?" he asked her and Karin tried not to blush again. No. There was no way in hell she would have. She had been too mortified when he had slunk off into the night like it was some sort of tacky one-night stand.

"You up and left me," She pointed out sharply, and once she had said it, she realised just how much her words betrayed her. She'd tried to make out that she hadn't been bothered by it for the past few weeks, but him leaving just like that had really dealt a blow to her pride. So she'd told herself that she was never going to see him again anyway and gotten on with things. Until she'd literally bumped into him at the supermarket. He'd started the conversation then, which had completely thrown her off-balance.

Toushirou's eyes held her own and Karin fought not to give too much of her thoughts away. Then he sighed and ran a hand through his hair, looking off to the side as he spoke, almost wearily. "It seems I have some work to do."

"What?" she asked, wondering what on earth he could possibly be talking about.

"Convincing you how much I wanted to stay," he told her almost too casually, his voice adopting just a little of the huskiness from that night of the wedding. She tried to shake her thoughts straight. He was still in the wrong and she was going to make him see that.

"If you wanted to stay you could have," she told him, her attitude completely unforgiving as she tried to turn her face away from him.

Toushirou shook his head. "Responsibilities, Karin. I had people relying on me." She didn't want to believe him. If he thought he was going to get away with it that easily, he was horribly mistaken.

"Priorities. Choices," she countered, letting a bit of her bitterness creep through. She had been relying on him. A little unfair perhaps but she had liked him more than little and she had wanted him to stay. Expected it of him, even. If only until the morning.

"I had every intention of calling you," he insisted and she adverted her gaze, refusing to blush. "It isn't my fault that my attempts at asking you out to dinner were met with Urahara's Lawn Mowing Service asking if I wanted my hedges trimmed."

Karin felt a horrid sense of embarrassment rise to colour her cheeks. Yes, she had probably sabotaged her own chances but it was because she refused to be one of those girls who hung around pining and hoping the guy would call her back. She refused. She had also been so sure that a guy as good looking as Toushirou wouldn't call a girl like her back.

Toushirou didn't seem to mind that she attempted to blow him off though. If anything, the irritation in his tone had turned rather smug, as though he were pleased with himself for finding her despite her attempts to avoid him. He lifted a hand and placed it on her jaw, firmly turning her face to his. His skin was more static than it should have been. His smirk was pulling on the edges of his mouth, making his eyes glow. "What you have yet to learn, Karin, is that I allow very little to stand in the way of what I want. Not even Urahara's Lawn Mowing Service could keep me away from what I have set my sight on." His voice was filled with a dogged sense of determination.

"Of course," Karin quipped, trying very hard to keep her voice steady. She was failing fast though and her last word wobbled even as she asked the question that she was sure she knew the answer to. "And what exactly is it that you have set your sights on?"

He knew that she knew his answer. "You." His single syllable echoed in her head and, as quickly as it was extinguished earlier by her low-battery phone, desire flared up again. Toushirou was clearly enjoying himself. "And the thing is…" He inched closer. "…I get the distinct impression you want me too." He whispered in her ear, and Karin felt as if she had been struck by the most wonderful lightning bolt to ever fall from the skies.

"Look-" She tried to protest but he cut her off.

"No why don't you do that 'nothing' you have been thinking about since I hunted you down in that supermarket four hours ago?" He teased and wound his hands around her waist, trapping her. Karin's breathing began to skitter. "Because that is exactly what I am going to do."

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><p><strong>Omake: Urahara's Lawn Mowing Service<strong>

**It had been a slow day for Urahara. Since he had pruned Kuchiki Byakuya's roses last week, he had been rather short of work. There was this irritating thing about grass, Urahara thought to himself, that it just didn't grow fast enough to sustain his business. It was a good thing that he had a pest removal business too. Luckily for him, there was no shortage of cockroaches in this world.**

**Urahara sat fanning himself when the phone suddenly rang, the shrill tone breaking the monotonous silence of the afternoon. **"**Urahara's Lawn Mowing Service, how can I help you?" He drawled down the line and the person on the other end seemed to be hesitant to speak.**

"**Um, there isn't a Karin there, is there?" The man asked down the line, his tone skeptic.**

"**No young man, there is no one here by the name of Karin," he said, almost bored with the entire conversation.**

"**Fine. Sorry to bother you," the person on the other end tried to sign off, but Urahara him short.**

"**Are you sure you don't need you lawn mowed?" Urahara asked rather persistently.**

"**No, I don't." The man countered and Urahara rolled his eyes.**

"**I can trim hedges too," He tried again, but the man didn't seem to want to take the offer.**

"**No. I don't need your services. Thank you very much." The man's tone was one of growing annoyance and clearly implied that there was no further arguing to be done. Urahara sniffed.**

"**Fine, but I bet your girlfriend didn't call back because your lawn needs to be mowed," Urahara jibed, and then yanked the phone away from his ear as the man slammed down the phone in annoyance.**

**Good grief, the youth of today. No respect for horticulture.**


End file.
